ah Xenos i have heard alot of them its rather funny when small children pull you up on it im here because i want to be out of the way of my mother shes trying to dress me up agin *shudders* pink frilly dresses and parasols are not for me. I prefer pants and guns and knives.

A lady after my own tastes! I'm raising my lovely daughter the same way-she's currently running around the house with an airsoft pistol!

As for me, I'm here because I enjoy the drink, the smoke, and the exceptional company *nods your direction.* I'm most recently returned from the Hashamite Kingdom of Jordan, in service of the king-nasty affair that, won't bore you with my scars, suffice it to say Petra is quite the defensable stronghold!

We had heard that some Atlantean operatives were at work in Tampa, and we flew over to take a look. I was all for capturing them quietly and questioning them, but my crew were more ruthless. (We had not yet realized the opportunity that awaited us; this was to be simple reconnaissance.) These operatives had holed themselves up in a fancy hotel, which would have dismayed some of my crew, but as luck would have it this was a hotel I had some connection with. You see, I had once courted the assistant manager's niece and he had taken a liking to me. So with a quick telegram to him we were provided with a room number and some uniforms to make us appear to be staff. Our disguise in place we ascended to the 29th floor of the hotel; our targets were on the 30th. Finding the room directly beneath theirs to be empty, we quickly set up explosives on the ceiling. While that work progressed I took our finest sharpshooter, a beautiful and heartless woman named Opal, with me upstairs to the room directly above our targets. We found that room occupied, and were forced to tie up the man inhabiting it. We placed a smaller explosive in the center of the floor, and at a prearranged signal we blew all our explosives.

As the room on the 30th floor dropped away, I leaped through the hole in the floor and drew my sword. (For those of you wondering how I survived a fall of such height, I will one day perhaps show you a very unique set of boots that should set your questions to rest.) I laid into them with my blade as my men fired their pistols and Opal sniped with her rifle. It was over in mere seconds. Only when we surveyed the damage did we realize how much certain members of our crew resembled them. Our two demolitions experts and our cook could easy pass casual scrutiny if given the right uniforms, and as luck would have it they had the right uniforms. We took what clothing and various other items we might need for our charade, and rappelled down the building to get away.

(Allow me to pause here and relight my pipe; it seems to have gone out. Ah, much better)

So in any case, we found their airship quickly and took off for New Atlantis. We knew there would be codes and questions and all sorts of secret business, but we had a fool-proof plan for those problems. In a word, improvise. As we neared the border, we spotted the new zeppelin Herrington floating above a military base. We were flagged by their sentries, but one of our mates had knowledge of semaphore flags, and signaled we had trouble with our landing gear. (Those Atlantean airships are notorious.) We docked with the Zeppelin and boarded it.

Now here is where my crew’s ingenuity truly came forward. My first mate is an amateur chemist, and had been experimenting with various gasses, as my poor nose can attest to. He had mixed a right doozy of a concoction that he had been waiting to try out. He signaled for us to put on our breathing masks and we vented the gas into the air. Being invisible and mostly odourless, it was not long before the rest of the Atlantean crew was incapacitated. We moved swiftly to the bridge, where we quickly set course for home. Night had fallen, and the lights from the ground were dim, so we were not easily seen. So sudden was our flight that we were only questioned once, and we quickly replied that we had just received secret orders or some such nonsense. Seeing they could not quickly catch us, the Atlanteans prepared to assemble and embark en masse, but they had no idea where we had gone. I have heard they raided the coast of Florida looking for us, but unbeknownst to anyone we keep a secret base in the Gulf and hid the zeppelin there.

That is the tale my good fellows. I swear it is true in its entirety and will challenge anyone who says otherwise. As for the way we got rid of the dratted zeppelin, that is a tale for another day.

You sir, are my new favorite person! *Proposes toast to Walkthebassline*

May those that love us, Love us. Those that don't may the Lord turn their hearts. If it be not in His will to turn their hearts, may He turn their ankles, that we may know them by their limping!

Logged

Don't let these shakes go on, it's time we had a break from it. Send me to the rear! Where the Tides of Madness swell, and men sliding into Hell...

Ah, it seems this bottle has been emptied. I shall require another. And would whoever is spinning the room please stop at once? Or speed it up. Nothing I hate more than a slow spin. Ah, but I've finished this pipe as well. That won't do at all.

*Refills pipe*

Now, does anyone else have a tale to regale us with?

Logged

"Well, I don't really think that the end can be assessed as of itself as being the end because what does the end feel like? It's like saying when you try to extrapolate the end of the universe, you say, if the universe is indeed infinite, then how - what does that mean? How far is all the way, and then if it stops, what's stopping it, and what's behind what's stopping it? So, what's the end, you know, is my question to you."

Ah, it seems this bottle has been emptied. I shall require another. And would whoever is spinning the room please stop at once? Or speed it up. Nothing I hate more than a slow spin. Ah, but I've finished this pipe as well. That won't do at all.

*Refills pipe*

Now, does anyone else have a tale to regale us with?

Is the room spinning clockwise, or anticlockwise? Between us, we MIGHT be sober! No need for that pipe, either, mate-here, have a pull of my shisha! Old habits from the Mysterious East die hard, I'm afraid...

Ah, stories, stories... Nothing quite so grand as the tale you told have I, my Aeronauts and I are fairly well low key these days-the SLAA discharged me some years back, and I've tried to keep a low key ever since...

Ah, see, with the lady present, I'm loath to speak of my deeds-lest she think me boastful. 'Suppose I could tell a bit about myself, then... I was drafted into the SLAA's army about a year after I moved from Central City 101 to Dockside, where I worked as a foreman unloading the oreships. Less than a week after arriving in the city, lost my two fingers here *holds up right hand, where the index and middle finger are mechanical*... Still, SLAA being hard up for men, they took me in, and through the ranks I moved like wildfire in a drought. Before long, I was the one in charge of hunting down the resistance. That was a bit of a delimma, and I don't mind saying-Victoria (she was... she was very close to me) was VERY involved in the resistance, and it was a strain on our relationship-in particular me hunting down and capturing her friends.

Granted, it was either that, or we ALL get exicuted. The Architect is not a kind man, no indeed he is not!

Suffice it to say my service record after 2 years was exempliry, I was honorably discharged after an explosion abord my craft, the AO Victoria (that's what took my eye, deary), and her namesake and I, along with my Aeronauts, moved to the Africas.

She... She died there. Caught malaria. I held her as she breathed her last. It's her what made me these fingers, see... But we're not hear to talk of SAD things, just too many in my life, I suppose...

Well now, you all know a bit more about the madness behind the man!

Now, if only I could remember some of Sgt. Brightraven's antics-that crazy Scot! I remember once, while we were helping the Bedouins in a little town in the north of Jordan-and we were invited to, what transliterates to an "All you can eat" buffet. Well, if you know Argus, then you know he's no small lad-no indeed! So he keeps going up for more, over and over-and I mean, it's going on twelve or thirteen trips for him. He just keeps stuffing his face, tawook, tabuli, hummas, you name it.

Well, after about an hour and a half, he's slowing down, but keeps right on. Finally, I ask him "Argus, what in God's Name are you doing?" he looked at me, deadpan, and asked "Sir, be this buffet all ya CAN eat, or be it all ya WANT to?"

The next day we helped hold of an invading tribe-Argus couldna keep his dinner down! Ah, it was glorius!

ah Xenos i have heard alot of them its rather funny when small children pull you up on it im here because i want to be out of the way of my mother shes trying to dress me up agin *shudders* pink frilly dresses and parasols are not for me. I prefer pants and guns and knives.

A lady after my own tastes! I'm raising my lovely daughter the same way-she's currently running around the house with an airsoft pistol!

As for me, I'm here because I enjoy the drink, the smoke, and the exceptional company *nods your direction.* I'm most recently returned from the Hashamite Kingdom of Jordan, in service of the king-nasty affair that, won't bore you with my scars, suffice it to say Petra is quite the defensable stronghold!

Good Xenos, the room seems to be spinning clockwise for me. Let us see if this fresh bottle of whiskey can fix things. And this shisha is quite good. I see why you smoke it so much.

Now come come sir, you must regale us with a tale. This Sgt. Brightraven sounds amusing, you yourself cannot be without some entertaining tales. Look here, your glass is empty. Let me fill it for you and you can regale us with a tale. The lady will not mind; I am sure she will admire the humility with which you tell us of your exploits.

I thank you for the drink, but my tales, I'm not sure how entertaining they would be-war stories seldom are. Sad, yes. Heroic? Maybe. I don't think there's anything particularly special about MY actions, but my CREW, now, they are the true heros!

Why, while we were serving in the Sudan, working with the Mabaan tribe, teaching them the use of steam power, we held off a neghboring tribe for a full week, with barebone supplies, and no reenforcements!

It started off as a fairly routine mission for us, a few years before we learned the folly of giving underdeveloped civilazations technology beyond their reach. Our goal was to go in, teach them, and then leave, after a few months of training them in the uses and such.

Well, life has a funny way about taking the routine and making it the extraordinary. We had been in Khartoum for about a week, when Victoria became involved with a boy's orphanage. She always did love children-unfortunatly, that was not in our stars... I digress...

Well, I put Argus in charge of teaching the locals to go and help Victoria out at the boy's home-I built them a boiler, refitted their kitchen, I even restrung some of their cots. Things were going well-a month turned into two, two into three, three into 10.

The boy's home was ran by a rather... eccentric lady. She was very strange. We'll call her... Barb. After our help, things between us were fairly well solid-but as time went on, I suppose she thought we were there to userp her "power," and if we took over the home, than we would be getting the aid money.

So. I'm sure you can see where this is going.

As I said, we'd been there nearly a year at this point, Argus had got the Mabaan VERY up to speed, even taken himself a wife! The wedding-now, that's a story for another time-but let me tell you, you've never partied 'til you've partied in Sudan! But again, I digress-Victoria and I were planning on settleing down ourselves.

Well, Barb was getting paranoid, and so to thwart our "hostile takeover," she quite literally ripped out all the work my Victoria and I did at the home-and then using her influences, hired some Egyptian Regulars to come down and work over our Mabaan.

What you have to understand about the Mabaan-they are very peaceful-they don't even have war drums (to this day, I'm told). So, when this battalion of 300 from Egypt shows up, wearing the Cario Cross, we're prepared for a massacre. I mean, I've got my Areonauts, yeah, but there's only a couple dozen of us...

Our advantage was the Mabaan's knowledge of the land-and our use of the same tactics that General Gordan (may his soul rest in peace) implemented in the defence of Khartoum during the Mahadi Revolt in 1884. Thankfully, the local government was none to crazy about an Egyptian battalion themselves, but as their army was otherwise occupied in the southern regions, the task fell to us and a couple of platoons left in the city. We fell back to the city proper, sending the Mabaan out to hide in the desert. My engineer, Donovan Driscoll, suggested we redig and reflood the canals, making the city sort of an island. We did, and using the rooftops, we had the battalion right where we wanted.

The fighting was brutal, to say the least. Of my two dozen Aeronauts, seven lost their life, and two others limbs. But we prevailed, and not a single Mabaan was lost.

Driscoll, and his trenches, Brightraven, and his firebombs. Matt, that crazy bastard, rest his soul... He took a repeater out in the streets, and held off a chage of near on a dozen, so the rest of his squad could fall back. Cost the poor sod his life, but his men lived.

Barb tried using her contacts to have me arrested, but thanks to service to the local leaders, they ended up deporting her back to Europe.

*Looks around* Blast, I do believe I've done it again... I really should learn to tell happy stories!

(OC: Sorry it's not funny or happy or whathave you-I'm just not really able to write happy stories for some reason. Never really have been able to, either-I'm WORKING on some happy/funny ones for this very thread, but it's a hard, HARD job I tell ya...)

Hmm? What was that? Sorry good Xenos, I seem to have been lost in thought. Not to mention lost in this bottle. A fine bottling indeed. And now gone as well. In truth that was a moving tale; sad yes, but heroic none the less. Has not the eloquent Professor Harold Hill said "A coward dies a thousand deaths, a brave man...merely five hundred." Let us toast their bravery and their deaths.

*raises glass*

(OC: I had an advantage there; my story actually happened in a rpg I ran once upon a time. My players surprised me but we had a great time. Roll with what works. There's nothing wrong with a good tragedy.)

I've been sweeping. There's some fairly mighty dust bunnies over in some of the more forgotten corners.And Ella, I sweep because no-one else will. It needs doing, and precious few people are willing to take on a Ecuadorian Dust Bunny, simply to tidy the place up.

I've been sweeping. There's some fairly mighty dust bunnies over in some of the more forgotten corners.And Ella, I sweep because no-one else will. It needs doing, and precious few people are willing to take on a Ecuadorian Dust Bunny, simply to tidy the place up.

Would you like me to call my associate James, good sir? He's well known for his Dust Bunnie Eradication Program.

People call on him from MILES around to ask his advice on dealing with the little blighters...

They're going well. I'm managing to mostly keep them corralled, although there is the occasional escapee. They're off in the Baricoot Room. The masks and protective garments are on a peg outside the door.

Ah yes, so be it . . . Xenos was in the Sudan. I need another drink to keep this all straight. By the bye, I spent some time in N'Guigmi on the Nigerien side of Lake Tchad -- just a stone's throw from Khartoum (if you have a rocket attached) -- I don't suppose you ever made it to that great body of water, did you, Master Xenos?

Now, as for Musketeers . . . I remember a certain Leftenant Ayres of the British East India Company who led a group of young redcoats who were still using the old .75 caliber Brown Bess muskets during the Sepoy Mutiny of '58 . . . ah well . . .